Health facilities: Imposing without, wanting within

Dysfunctional testing equipment at Pindi hospitals leave the patients in a quandary.

RAWALPINDI:

Huge entrances at public hospitals may look overly inviting to the poor patients but once inside there is hardly anything beyond a white-attired doctor’s hand on your pulse and a stethoscope on your chest asking you to ‘cough’  and then uttering gruffly ‘a little loud’ without the suffix ‘please’ at that.

Gone are the days when a mere visit to a medical practitioner was enough for a true diagnosis. Now tests and more tests are the way to go. And that is not possible without proper testing equipment.

Three major health facilities in the garrison city are in dire need of up-gradation to cater to the need of patients.

Three public sector hospitals ---Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) and Holy Family Hospital (HFH) — catering to over five million people of the district are lacking the essential equipment. Which practically means, that the patients may visit a government facility but it does not lighten the burden on their pockets in anyway as they have to go to private laboratories to get the requisite tests done for a proper diagnosis.

Computed Tomography (CT) scan machines both at BBH and DHQ are non-functional for sometime now whereas Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines are non-existent.

In the absence of these facilities patients mostly the underprivileged are suffering.

An officials at BBH hospital said that the CT scan machine installed developed some fault three years back but the authorities took no notice of it. We refer the patients requiring scan  to the DHQ hospital. A few days back the machine there has also gone out of order.

“Since our CT scan machine is not working. We refer patients to others hospitals. Earlier, we used to refer patients to DHQ for CT scan. But, now machine is not working there too. Now, we send patients to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences while some patients at their own go to the private labs,” said Dr Shaheen Akhtar Malik of BBH.

“Yes, our CT scan machine is not working. We have written to the authorities for early maintenance of this machine,” said Dr Sajid at DHQ.

On Sunday, BBH hospital referred four patients to PIMS for CT scan test.

In the urology department of BBH, since last four years there is no Lithotripsy facility.

The extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL) machine is used to break a kidney stone into pieces so that it can drain out through urine. “Every day, we receive 70 to 80 patients and most of them need lithotripsy test,” said Dr Adnan of urology department at BBH.

None of the three hospitals has an MRI machine.

MRI, CT scans and lithotripsy tests are costly. A CT scan at a private facility costs Rs4,000, MRI between Rs7,000 to 10,000 and lithotripsy Rs30,000, which is beyond the power of most.

Patients decry the authorities and doctors for non availability of these critical testing facilities.

“I came here to get information to have an MRI test of my wife but am being told to go to either a private hospital or PIMS,” said Wajid Ali, a taxi driver, whose wife is on bed for the last 6 months. “There is no CNG in my cab...no gas supply at house. I am unable to run my house and now these doctors are saying to get MRI test done either from private hospitals or PIMS.”

Ali, an attendant at DHQ hospital said that poor cannot afford the fee of private laboratories.

All the three hospitals are allied with the Rawalpindi Medical College.

Despite repeated attempts Principal and Chief Executive Rawalpindi Medical College Dr Muhammad Umar who is also incharge of the allied hospitals could not be reached for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2014.